No-Frills Toasted Walnut Cake

According to my big stack o' food magazines, Thankgiving is the day for pie, and the December holidays are prime-time for cookies. Since there's no formal season for cakes, we'll eat them all year and call it even. Fair?

Early spring brunches bring rhubarb coffee cake; summer calls for double-decker strawberry cake; and I've got a slew of French-style no-biggie cakes, peasant and pound, to finish off just about any meal.

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But when winter can't seem to let go, I want something toasty and comforting, something simple and relatively unadorned. The days are so short that I can't really motivate to make something sky-high and celebratory - plus, after dinners of thick lentil soup and rib-sticking stews, I want a desert to finish things off without overdoing it.

When I first came upon this walnut cake, it was quite the opposite of "not overdoing it:" a towering thing, with piles (I'm serious, piles) of jam, and a big, fluffy cloud of tangy whipped cream gilding the lily. The thing was tasty, but it was so done up, it had almost nothing to do with the cake at the center of it all.

In my world, the solution to all not-quite perfect recipes is to add chocolate. And so, armed with my best Valrhona, I baked the original cake, slit it in half, painted a thin layer of jam in the middle, smacked the two halves backed together, and cloaked them in chocolate ganache.

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In my world, this sounds like the cake of dreams -- only it wasn't. It was dense, cluttered, and, quite truthfully, unpleasant to eat. Womp.

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And so it was that I attempted time #3. I ditched the fancy springform  and pulled out my most trustworthy, least fussy square baking pan. I ditched the Valrhona (don't tell on me) and I even ditched the jam. Back to basics: It felt a bit like wiping off the makeup from a stage performer.

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My instincts were right: the cake was drop-dead gorgeous au natural. Toasty and warm, nutty but also plenty buttery, absolutely perfect with a cup of tea. That's how we ate it, morning and afternoon, until it was all gone. Did I mention it comes together in one bowl (a food processor bowl, but still) in no time at all? Just as it should be.

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Where I live, the snow is still coming down. That means there'll be another pan full of this cake, and lots of hot water for tea. It's the little things that make me feel lucky these days. This is one of them.

No-Frills Toasted Walnut CakePared down and adapted from an old Gourmet recipe

Notes: You can make this cake in either a round pan or a square one. Make sure it's an 8-inch pan, though: a 9-inch pan will give you a thin cake that's a bit less satisfying to eat.

If you must fuss, mix 1/2 cup of whipped cream with 2 tablespoons sour cream and a tablespoon of sugar. The tangy whipped cream, in small doses, compliments the cake without overpowering it.

1 1/4 cups walnuts (4 1/2 oz) 2/3 cup sugar 1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces 4 large eggs 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350° with a rack in the middle of the oven. Butter and flour an 8-inch square or round cake pan.

Spread walnuts in a single layer on an ungreased, unlined sheet pan. Toast for 10-15 minutes, until nuts are tinted slightly and smell very fragrant. Watch carefully: you want to take the nuts into golden-brown territory but if you burn them, you'll need to start over.

Pulse walnuts and sugar in a food processor until finely chopped. Add butter and process until combined, then add eggs and vanilla and process until combined. Add flour, baking powder, and salt and pulse just until incorporated. Spread batter in cake pan.

Bake until cake is just firm to the touch and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 15 minutes in pan, then turn out onto a rack and cool completely.

Cake keeps, well-wrapped, at room temperature for up to 4 days.

Blueberry Oat Muffins

A couple weeks ago, before our (glorious!) trip to Berlin, I got a group email from a cook friend asking if anyone had a favorite recipe for blueberry muffins. We all wrote back with our favorites, and a few themes emerged: good blueberry muffins need the tang of sour cream, yogurt, or buttermilk. They need a good amount of sugar (sorry, I know I'm breaking the cardinal rule of healthy January blogging, but it's true). A crumb topping can be polarizing: some swear by it, while others (cough) think the craggy, sturdy top of a blueberry muffin is delicious as is and best unadulterated. (Though, before you peg me with hard, pale, winter tomatoes, let me say that I'm still very much on team crumb-topping for everything else. Coffee cake is best when the ratio of cake to crumb makes you furrow your brow and ask whether the thing can honestly be called a cake.)

To this inquiring friend, I sent along my all-time favorite Cooks Illustrated recipe. Another friend swore by Ina Garten's formula. And then, even though there wasn't enough flour in the tub, and only three of us were eating breakfast, I yanked a ziploc of blueberries out of the freezer (yes, I freeze summer blubes in portions perfect for blueberry muffins, everyone does that right?) and whipped up a batch of fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, substitutions-galore blueberry muffins, 12 for the three of us. And guys? They were perfect.

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I know this is the umpteenth oat recipe I've posted recently. And yes, I know, you all have blueberry muffin recipes you love and swear by, you don't need others. I still love the CI originals, and I'd still recommend them to anyone in search of a keeper. But these, with their oat flour and a tiny bit of almond flour, were perfect in a Kim Boyce, Good-to-the-Grain kind of way. They tasted toasty and nutty; as my brother said, they tasted like they were loaded with brown sugar (nope).

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Now they're here, which means they're in the permanent collection. I hope you'll make and love them as much as we did.

Back from Berlin! I know it's been quiet around here for the last couple of weeks, but boy, did our vacation do me good. I can't wait to share all the delicious little nuggets of our trip with you. There's so much deliciousness to share! Stay tuned.

One year ago: Monkey GingerbreadTwo years ago: Adobo Black Bean Soup Three years ago: Duck Confit Four years ago: Thai Cabbage Salad with Cashews and Chili-Coconut Dressing Five years ago: Sicilian Caponata Six years ago: Lawsuit Muffins with Mango

Oat and Almond Blueberry Muffinsheavily adapted from a basic Cooks Illustrated recipe

1 cup (4.5 oz.) unbleached all-purpose flour 1/2 cup (1.75 oz.) oat flour 1/2 cup (1.75 oz.) almond meal 1 tablespoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 egg 7 ounces (1 cup) sugar 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled 10 ounces sour cream, yogurt, or buttermilk (whatever you have on hand, though I especially like buttermilk here) 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tin with paper liners and grease with either butter or nonstick spray.

Whisk flours, almond meal, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk the egg in a second medium bowl until uniformly pale colored, about 20 seconds. Add the sugar and whisk vigorously until thick and homogeneous, about 30 seconds; add the melted butter in 2 or 3 additions, whisking to combine after each addition. Add the sour cream in 2 additions, whisking just to combine.

Add the berries to the dry ingredients and gently toss just to combine. Add the sour cream mixture and fold with a rubber spatula until the batter comes together and the berries are evenly distributed, 25 to 30 seconds.

Divide batter among greased/lined muffin cups. Bake until light golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan front to back halfway through the baking time. Invert onto a wire rack and cool 5 minutes.

Ruby Campari Fizz

The other night, we met friends for dinner at a restaurant we last visited almost exactly one year ago: Range, in Friendship Heights. We went last February, for my birthday, with a few close friends. The restaurant was brand new and very on its game. We had a fantastic meal and even better drinks - some of the best I've had in the city.

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This time, our meal was less memorable: the servers were green and very conspicuous, awkwardly explaining and pointing (very closely!) to every element on the plate, interrupting our conversation at what seemed like all the worst moments, and insisting on giving us their spiels when we clearly already understood the concept of small plates. (Restaurants: for heaven's sake, stop with your spiels! Let us eat cake!)

But the drinks. The drinks! They were still as wonderful as I remembered from one year ago. I had an old-fashioned glass full of scotch, pumpkin shrub, and bitters with a hint of cayenne. And D, well she had the most intense drink of all: basically a big glass of whiskey, with a hint of maraschino and bitters. But mostly whiskey. The strongest, least smooth Old Fashioned you've ever had. And what was it called? The Mother-in-Law. Of course.

Before we go any further: I love my in-laws. Got that?

But that's a well-named cocktail. It makes you laugh when you drink it. It sticks with you long after it's gone. And if you liked it, you'll know exactly how to order it next time.

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Which is why I felt compelled to rename drink I served for brunch this weekend. The original version is called the 522 North Pinckney, which is one of those names that you only understand if you recognize that it's an address, and then go and know the person whose address it used to be.

Turns out, 522 North Pinckney is the former address of Brian Bartels, who co-owns Fedora, a Greenwich Village Bar, with Gabriel Stulman, who used to run the front of the house at the wonderful Little Owl, in the West Village, and also owns another Village spot called Joseph Leonard, where apparently Brian Bartels mixologizes. (Word? Now it is!) And that's where 522 North Pinckney comes from.

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But I've never been to Joseph Leonard. I've never been to Fedora. I've never met either of these (surely fedora-ed) fellows. And I guess I figure that unless drinks have names so common and ingrained that calling them something else misleads people (i.e. bloody mary; mimosa), a cocktail's name should evoke something you understand. Is Ruby Campari Fizz the most brilliant name ever? Ha. But you hear it, and you know what you're about to get.

Behold, the Ruby Campari Fizz:

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Ruby because your glass is about one-third red grapefruit juice. Campari because it's a prevalent flavor, and the other special liqueur in there - St. Germain - is too unwieldy a name to slap on a cocktail. Fizz is Prosecco or Cava, because you don't need to splurge on Champagne to have a happy new year.

It's a mighty strong way to ring in 2014, whether in the evening, served in flutes, or over New Year's brunch, in a coupe or the like. It's pretty and sparkly and cheery. I hope this coming year is all of those things and more, for all of us.

Happy New Year, friends. Cheers!

Ruby Campari FizzAdapted from the bar Joseph Leonard, via Bon Appetit

Makes 8 servings

3 red grapefruits 1/2 cup St. Germain (elderflower liqueur) 1/4 cup Campari 1 750-ml. bottle Prosecco or Cava (go with something inexpensive)

Set a strainer over a large bowl.

Halve grapefruits. Squeeze 5 grapefruit halves into the bowl. If you want your cocktail pulpy, transfer some of the suspended pulp from the strainer into the bowl. Press on remaining pulp and seeds to release any juice, then discard the pulp and seeds. You should wind up with approximately 2 cups of liquid.

Cut the remaining grapefruit half into two. Then slice one of the grapefruit quarters into thin slices along its cross-section. You'll use these slices to garnish the glasses.

Add St. Germain and Campari to the grapefruit juice. Transfer to a pitcher, and refrigerate until ready to serve (at least 1 hour if possible).

To serve, divide grapefruit mixture equally among 8 glasses. (If serving fewer than 8 people, pour about 1/3 cup of the mixture into each glass.) Top with Prosecco or Cava. Set one cross-section slice of grapefruit on each glass, and serve.

(Keep grapefruit mixture chilled before serving, or make up to one day in advance and chill thoroughly.)

Gingerbread Oat Waffles

Christmas may not be our holiday, but we're hunkering down for winter vacation nonetheless. I'm wrapped in a thick blanket, my feet tucked into cozy slippers, and there's bergamot tea on hand. To go with the tea, I made a second batch of teeny tiny cookies, which I'll tell you about soon. But first things first: let's talk about breakfast.

I did a quick scan of the archives this morning and discovered that we've never discussed waffles, which seems like a moderate injustice considering how many great waffles this kitchen has seen. The wait ends now; these gingerbread waffles were too good not to share. And if, like us, your table could use just a bit more gingerbread stuff (the gingerbread, ginger snaps, and gingerbread flavored tea apparently aren't enough), waffles will do the trick.

gingerbread waffles ingredients

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I made them this morning, as a preview to the next few days of actual vacation. One of us was ambitiously dressing for work; I was still in gym clothes, plotting my day of errands and meal delivery and other very non-work things. The batter looked definitively like nothing special, but when it hit the iron and started to steam, the house filled with that wintery, spicy smell that says "December!" and also, "You don't have to work today." I was just listening to the waffles.

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As pretty as a dusting of powdered sugar would look on these guys, I implore you: do not skip the maple syrup. No waffles have ever befitted that topping more. And I might spring for a pad of salted butter, too. You've got 31 days in January to hit the gym and work them off.

syrup because yes

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Happy holidays, friends. Stay warm and cuddly, full and fulfilled. I'll see you back here in a little while.

couldn't wait.

Update 12/26/13: It occurred to me during an exchange in the comments that you could definitely take this batter recipe and make it as pancakes. If you don't have a waffle iron, don't let that deter you! If you try it, let us know how it turns out.

Update #2: The second time I made this, I swapped out 1/4 cup each of the white flour and buttermilk, and added 1/2 cup of leftover sourdough starter. Result: awesome. I bet you could substitute up to 1 cup total, so double what I tried. As always: if you try it, report back.

Gingerbread Oat Waffles Adapted from Chowhound Makes 8 large (4-section) Belgian waffles, or up to 12 thinner round (4-section) waffles; serves 4-6

These waffles call for buttermilk, but they work with regular milk as well. If you use regular milk, but be sure to trade that teaspoon of baking soda for another teaspoon of baking powder.

2 cups (190 grams) all-purpose flour 1 cup (100 grams) oat flour (made by grinding oats in a food processor or spice mill until fine) 1/4 cup packed (60 grams) dark brown sugar (light brown works, too) 1 tablespoon ground ginger 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 rounded teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 3 large eggs 3 cups well-shaken buttermilk 2 sticks (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted 1/3 cup molasses (any will do, but dark works especially well here) 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Warm maple syrup and salted butter, for serving (optional, but not really)

In a large bowl, combine flours, sugar, ginger, baking soda and/or powder, salt, and spices. Whisk to break up any lumps.

In a separate bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk, melted butter, molasses, and vanilla. Whisk to combine.

Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and use a fork to mix together in decisive, brisk strokes, just until the dry ingredients disappear.

Heat a waffle iron according to the manufacturer's instructions. (I use the "crisp exterior, soft interior" setting.) Fill the waffle iron with about 1/3, close the lid, and cook until the steam starts to diminish or your waffle iron beeps telling you the waffle is done. Serve waffles immediately to very hungry, very grateful guests; alternatively, waffles will hold in a 250-degree oven for 10 minutes or so while you finish making them.

Serve hot, with warm maple syrup and salted butter.